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Roughly one in three mobile phone subscribers in the United States used a downloaded application during a three-month period ending in July, while a nearly equal number used their phone's web browser, a study shows.

In both cases, the percentage of subscribers reflected an increase from the previous three-month period, ComScore reported Wednesday. Also on the rise is the percentage of people texting, which rose to about two in three cell phone users.

ComScore's findings on the use of downloaded mobile applications was similar to that of a study released this week by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. Pew found that 35% of adult mobile phone users have apps on their devices, and 24% use them.

ComScore, on the other hand, found that among mobile phone subscribers 13 and older, 31.4% downloaded apps in the period ending in July, compared to 29.8% in the previous three-month period. A possible reason for ComScore's higher number is the inclusion of younger teenagers in the study.

The increasing use of downloaded apps is important because it reflects the progress mobile phone manufacturers have made in marketing apps that extend the usefulness of their products and build customer loyalty. All major smartphone makers have online app stores.

ComScore also found an increase in web browser usage. Fully 33.6% of phone subscribers used a browser during the July period versus 31.1% in the prior period.

Text messaging surpassed all other content usage on mobile phones with 66% of subscribers sending texts. When it came to playing games, accessing social networking sites, and listening to music, the percentages were 22.3%, 21.8%, and 14.5%, respectively. While game playing remained nearly flat, social networking and music rose by 1.9 and 0.7 percentage points, respectively.

In looking at smartphones, the fastest growing category of the mobile phone market, ComScore found that the number of users of the advanced cellular phones rose 11% in the July period from the previous three months, to 53.4 million people. Research In Motion, which makes the BlackBerry, led the market with a 39.3% share, followed by Apple's iPhone, 23.8%; Google Android-based phones, 17%; Microsoft Windows-based phones, 11.8%; and Palm, which is owned by Hewlett-Packard, 4.9%.

All the smartphone platforms lost share to Android phones. However, all of them gained subscribers, as the smartphone market overall continued to grow, ComScore said.